Offaly driver will seek first win after Formula 2 season summer break
Young Clonbullogue man in fourth place in race for title after Budapest with championship entering final five laps
AS the Formula 2 season takes its summer break before returning in September, Clonbullogue man Alexander Dunne is in fourth place in the race for the title.
The drivers have completed nine rounds of the championship with the next race slotted in for Monza, Italy on the weekend of September 4-6.
That will be followed by the final four race weekends – Madrid, Spain, September 11-13; Baku, Azerbaijan, September 24-26; Lusail, Qatar, November 27-29 and Yas Island, Abu Dhabi, December 4-6.
Dunne, still only 20, has yet to win either a sprint race or a feature race but did clock the fastest lap in his Rodin Motorsport car on the Gilles Villeneuve circuit in Montreal, Canada on the third weekend of the season, May 22-24 and finished second in the feature race.
Prior to that the championship opened in Melbourne, Australia on March 6-8 and then moved to Miami, USA, on May 1-3. Dunne was third in both sprints.
It was then back to Europe for Monte-Carlo, Monaco on June 4-7, where Dunne again made the feature race podium in second. Barcelona was on June 12-14 and Dunne was again runner-up in the feature. The season then went to the Red Bull Ring, Spielberg, Austria on June 26-28 (Dunne fourth in the sprint), Silverstone, Britain, on July 3-5 (Dunne fourth in the feature) and Spa-Francorchamp, Belgium on July 17-19 (Dunne was fourth in the feature and fifth in the sprint) before last weekend's round in Budapest, Hungary.
In the Hungaroring, Alex Dunne was towards the back of the grid and finished just outside the points in 11th place in the feature race.
He was 19th in the sprint race the previous day and had been sixth in the provisional qualifications for the weekend.
In Budapest Noel León earned his first Formula 2 feature race victory. The Campos Racing driver took the lead after a virtual safety car interruption. Nikola Tsolov leads the championship on 167 points ahead of Gabriele Minì, 147 and Rafael Câmara, 145 points. Alex Dunne is fourth on 108. A feature race win would earn the Offaly man 25 points.